Thursday, July 26, 2012

Anybody who was thinking about exporting DBFS via NFS have probably stumbled upon the fact the Oracle says it can not be done:

DBFS does not support exporting NFS or SAMBA exports

What's wrong with DBFS?

There is nothing wrong with DBFS itself. The problem originated form the fact that FUSE did not have proper interfaces implemented to support exporting by the kernel. Newer versions of the Linux kernel fully support exporting. I know that OEL 6.x works for sure as I did the DBFS exports myself through both NFS as well as Samba. The common minimum kernel version circulating across the internet seems to be 2.6.27 but I haven't had a chance to check whether it's true.

Older Kernels

Fact of the matter is -- it was always possible to export FUSE via NFS. You just had to use user mode NFS server, like UNFS3. I did that too and know that it works regardless of the kernel version you're running. Unfortunately projects like UNFS3 are lagging in development as well as feature-wise. But they do work if you have to have the NFS exports working and stuck with the older Linux kernels.